Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.3, No.

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The Development of Sustainable Manufacturing Practices and Sustainable Performance in Malaysian Automotive Industry
Anis Fadzlin Mohd Zubir, Nurul Fadly Habidin*, Juriah Conding, Nurzatul Ain Seri Lanang Jaya, Suzaituladwini Hashim Faculty of Management and Economics, Sultan Idris Education University, 35900 Tanjung Malim, Perak, Malaysia. Tel: +60017-5717027 E-mail: fadly@fpe.upsi.edu.my The research is financed by Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) and UPSI Research University Grant (RUG).

Abstract This paper shows a model to conduct an empirical study in Malaysian automotive industry in order to improve their sustainable performance. The problems of sustainability are becoming a global concern by many manufacturing companies especially in automotive industry. The sustainability research in this study targets the measures and studies at the three basic elemental levels involved; environmental, economic and social. The presented review categorizes the literature into three main research areas; sustainable manufacturing practices, sustaining lean improvements, and sustainable performance. Also, the text attempts to draw the link between these research themes, expose any relationship and inter-relationships, and discuss the physics behind some of the sustainability models presented to analyze the automotive sustainability. Keywords: Sustainable Manufacturing Practices; Sustaining Lean Improvements; Sustainable Performance; Automotive Industry Introduction
The automotive industry, including the motor vehicle parts industry, is highly desired by many countries as a driver of economic growth, job creation, and technology development. The countries of the ASEAN region are no exception. They have succeeded at developing individual automotive industries over the past decades in part through the use of local-content requirements, high tariffs, investment incentives, and tax policies designed to promote and protect their respective industries (ASEAN: Regional Trends in Economic Integration, Export Competitiveness, and Inbound Investment for Selected Industries, 2010). Moving forward into 2011, the industry is set to strengthen gradually but at a modest pace, in line with regional and global auto demand recovery, in view of several rounds of interest rate hike and higher petrol prices (Malaysia Automotive Economy Trend and Outlook, 2011). In fact, according to the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA), production of motor vehicles for 2011 totaled 533,515 units comprising 488,261 units of passenger vehicles and 45,254 units of commercial vehicles. Sales of motor vehicles amounted to 600,123 units in 2011 consisting of 535,113 units of passenger vehicles and 65,010 units of commercial vehicles (Malaysia Investment Performance, 2011). In this era, the role of sustainable within the manufacturing automotive industry has change and matured in the dynamic business environment. In generally, the issue of sustainability has become a critical issue for the business world (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002; The UN Global Compact, 2004; Hawken, 2007) although sustainability is still a vague concept, there is growing consensus that it is necessary to move from trying to define it toward developing concrete tools for promoting and measuring achievement (Veleva and Ellenbecker, 2000). In addition, sustainability in manufacturing area has received enormous attention in recent years an effective solution to support the continuous growth and expansion of manufacturing industry (Yuan et al., 2012). According to Jayal et al. (2010), to achieve the sustainable manufacturing requires a holistic view spanning in product, manufacturing processes and supply chain including the manufacturing systems across multiple product life-cycles. In particular, recent trends in developing improved sustainability scoring methods for products and processes, and predictive models and optimization techniques for sustainable manufacturing processes. Therefore, it can analyze the importance of these issues through the lenses of several well established theoretical perspectives. From a resource-based view of the firm, sustainability may constitute a valuable, innovation, and hard to imitate resource or capability that leads to competitive advantage (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). In term of competitive advantage, a good sustainability strategy must first be a good business strategy that first an

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organizations unique value-chain opportunities and threats (Porter and Kramer, 2006; Siegel, 2009). Considering the complexities involved in the above-mentioned focus areas for sustainable manufacturing, optimized solution, and corresponding underlying models, are necessary. Therefore, this paper presents an overview of recent trends, and new challenges, for achieving sustainability at the manufacturing practices, lean improvement, and performance, with a focus on modeling and optimization aspect. 1.1 Sustainable Manufacturing Practices (SMP) Since the turn of the new millennium, drives towards SMP have been getting stronger and stronger in most part of business and society (Seidel et al., 2007; Jafartayari, 2010; Millar and Russell, 2011; Vinodh and Joy, 2012; Rosen and Kishawy, 2012). The efforts of manufacturing industries to achieve sustainable manufacturing have shifted from end-of-pipe solutions to a focus on product lifecycles, and integrated environmental strategies, and management systems. Furthermore, efforts are increasingly made to create closed-loop, circular production systems and adopt new business models (OECD, 2009). In many other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and the USA expect economic, social, and environmental factors have also started to make manufacturing companies consider sustainability more seriously (Seidel et al., 2007; Jayal et al., 2010; Gunasekaran and Spalanzani, 2011). Following Flanagan et al., (2003), European citizens support the governments coordinating, and regulating role to reconcile the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability. Therefore, sustainability has become a primary competitive factor for many manufacturing companies in Europe (Flanagan et al., 2003; Seidel et al., 2007). Other previous studies also concur on the need of Malaysian manufacturing industry. Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia (2010) has had the privilege to talk with three multinationals that are based in Malaysia; namely, Panasonic, General Electric (GE), and TOYOTA. These companies shared their practices in different ways, and thinking of achieving sustainable development. As a manufacturer of electronic products, Panasonic takes responsibility to preserve the natural environment that sustains life on earth for future generations. As a consumer, industrial products, and services, GE looks seriously on green environment in the areas of aviation, commercial aviation services, traditional, and renewable energy systems, oil and gas, transportation, as well as water, and process technologies. Due to environmental issues, Toyota as a vehicle manufacturer has taken many green initiatives to ensure that their products and services are environmental friendly. More information about the Malaysian manufacturing industry need is given in Table 1.0. Based on the current needs, SMP implementation gives many benefits to our country from social, economic, and environmental aspect. Some of the strongest sustainability decision drivers reported in Fairfield et al. (2011) study such as spurring innovation and growth, enhancing reputation and image, avoiding regulatory entanglements, and attracting and retaining top talent - are those often identified as among the strongest corporate benefits of sustainability strategies (Savitz and Weber, 2006). The specific decision drivers and practices reported by this much larger sample are congruent with Bansal and Roths (2000) drivers of competitive advantage and legitimating, with less impact form social responsibility. Further, these results are consistent with Basu and Palazzos (2008) such as stakeholder-driven, performance-driven, and motivationdriven rationales for corporate social responsibility. The anticipated approaches in Table 2.0 can help meet the benefit of SMP Implementation. After having a thorough literature review, this paper has identified these four critical factors, namely: (1) manufacturing processes; (2) supply chain management; (3) social responsibility; and (4) environment management (Refer Table 3.0). 1.2 Sustaining Lean Improvements (SLI) This paper focused on three aspects during a lean implementation which, due to a lack of literature on these topics, are often disregarded, leading to short term improvements that cannot be sustained over a longer period of time (Schlichting, 2009). For this papers proposed that sustaining lean improvements depends on three aspects. Firstly, standards work (Murphy, 2001; Foschi, 2009). A study by Foschi (2009) states that the role of three factors in task group: level performance, performers status, and standards used to judge ability. On the other hand, the focus is on the use of different standards for competence for members of various status categories. Nevertheless, Murphy (2001) has largely ignored the performance standard, which generates important incentives whenever plan participants can

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influence the standard-setting process. Internally determine standards are directly affected by management actions in the current or prior year, while externally determine standards are less easily affected. Secondly, employee involvement (Cabrera et al., 2003; Jones and Kato, 2005). Currently most researchers agree that competitive environment is one of the major causes of the increase in the use of participative management practices. This is clearly supported by Cabrera et al. (2003) results, which showed a highly significant positive relationship between competition and employee involvements. Jones and Kato (2005) presented an econometric case study for employee involvement on firm performance. One of the findings showed that employee involvement will produce improved enterprise performance through diverse channels including enhanced discretionary effort by employees. Last but not least is continuous improvement. Caused by an increasing rate and complexity of business environments, organizations no longer compete on processes but the ability to continually improve processes (Teece, 2007). At the same time numerous organizations that have deployed continuous improvement initiatives have not been successful in getting what they set out to achieve. Results of a 2007 survey of US manufacturers showed that while 70% of plants had deployed lean manufacturing techniques, 74% of these were disappointed with the progress they were making with lean (Pay, 2008). 1.3 Sustainable Performance (SP) The successful implementation of sustainable development could improve more than one dimension of sustainable performance such as environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and corporate social responsibility sustainability (Moldan et al., 2012; Schoenherr, 2011; Bartelmus, 2010; Singh et al., 2009; Labuschagne et al. 2005; Veleva and Ellenbecker, 2001). According to the sustainability literature, there have been various dimensions of the sustainable performance that were used by previous studies. Table 4.0 summarizes the sustainable performance literature. 1. A Proposed Conceptual Model

Based on comprehensive review of previous study, a conceptual model has been proposed to model the relationship between SMP and SP as presented in Figure 1. This proposed model has adopted the conceptual proposed by Millar and Russell (2011) and Fairfield et al. (2011). However, some amendments especially on SMP implementation and SP constructs have been made.

2.1 The relationship between SMP and SP In sum, every critical factors of SMP can lead to excellent SP. In addition, numerous researchers have indicated a positive impact between SMP and three dimension of the triple bottom line such as environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social corporate responsibility sustainability (Jayal et al., 2010; Gimenez et al., 2012; Vinodh and Joy, 2012; Rosen and Kishawy, 2012). To ensure the relationship between SMP implementation and SP, research by Kaebernick et al. (2003) have presented the integration of environmental requirements throughout the entire lifetime of a product. They presented the concept of an approach to product development, based on a paradigm for sustainable manufacturing which is reflected in a new way of thinking, new application tools and methodologies in every single step of product development. In fact, an industry case study shows that the implementation of the new paradigm can lead to new market opportunities for a company. The results are consistent with findings in Rusinko (2007) has presented an evaluation of environmentally sustainable manufacturing practice and their impact on competitive outcomes. The author presented an exploratory study of the relationship between specific environmentally sustainable manufacturing practices and specific competitive outcomes in a US-based commercial carpet industry. Findings suggest that environmentally sustainable manufacturing practices may be positively associated with competitive outcomes. In particular, different types of environmentally sustainable manufacturing practices are associated with different competitive outcomes. These specific findings can be helpful to engineering and operations managers as they respond to environmental and competitive demands. 2. Methodology

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In this study, sampling method by using structured questionnaire. The population of this study comprised in Malaysian automotive industry. Questionnaires will distribute to respondents from the listing of automotive industry obtained from Malaysian Automotive Component Parts Association (MACPMA), Proton Vendors Association (PVA) and Kelab Vendor PERODUA. To analyze the data, one statistical technique was adopted. Structural Equation Modeling Techniques (SEM) was utilize to perform the require statistical analysis of the data from the survey. Exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to test for construct validity, reliability and measurements loading were performed. Having analyzed the measurement model, the structural model was then tested and confirmed. The statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17 was used to analyze the preliminary data and provide descriptive analyses about thesis sample such as means, standard deviations and frequencies. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM using AMOS 6.0) will use to test the measurement model. This study is expected to arrive at the following conclusion: This study has important implication for SMP and SP in Malaysia automotive industry. As such, it is expected to benefit both researchers and practitioners. 3. Discussion Many studies have been performed to identify critical success factors for successful SMP implementation. However, no previous study had tried to investigate the relationship between SMP implementation and SP, especially amongst automotive industry in Malaysia. A conceptual model has been proposed to examine the relationship between SMP implementation and SP measures relationship for Malaysian automotive industry. To understand the relationship of SMP implementation and SP in Malaysian automotive industry, the following hypothesis will be used and test. There is a positive and direct significant relationship between SMP implementation and SP in H 1: Malaysian automotive industry 4. Conclusion In brief, the findings of this research can be benefited, used and contribute not only to academic but also to the industry, especially to the suppliers development, and improvement division and to the Malaysian automotive practitioners as a whole in making the model, and the tool of this study as a benchmark to serve as a guide and reference resources to implement SMP initiatives, SLI, and SP. Acknowledgement The researchers would like to acknowledge the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) for the financial funding of this research thought Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS), Research Management Centre (RMC), and UPSI for Research University Grant (RUG). References ASEAN: Regional Trends in Economic Integration, Export Competitiveness, and Inbound Investment for Selected Industries (2010). United States International Trade Commission. [Online] Available: http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4176.pdf Bansal, P., and Roth, K. (2000). Why companies go green: A model of ecological responsiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 43, 717-736. Bartelmus, P. (2010). Use and usefulness of sustainability economics. Ecological Economics, 69, 2053-2055. Basu, K., and Palazzo, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: A process model of sense making. Academy of Management Review, 33(1), 122136. Blackburn, W. R. (2007). The sustainability handbook: The complete management guide to achieving social, economic, and environmental responsibility. London: Earth scan. Cabrera, E. F., Ortega, J., and Cabrera, A. (2003). An exploration of the factors that influence employee participation in Europe. Journal of World Business, 43-54. Fairfield, K., Harmon, J., and Behson, S. (2011). Influences of the Organizational Implementation of Sustainability: An Integrative Model. Organization Management Journal, 1541-6518. Falck, O., and Heblich, S. (2007). Corporate social responsibility: Doing well by doing good. Business Horizons, 247254.

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Flanagan, K., Green, L., Malik, K., and Miles, I. (2003). The Future of Manufacturing in Europe 2015-2020: The Challenge for Sustainability. Foschi, M. (2009). Gender, performance level, and competence standards in task groups. Social Science Research, 38, 447-457. Gimenez, C., Sierra, V., and Rodon, J. (2012). Sustainable operation: Their impact on the triple bottom line. International Journal Production Economics. Gunasekaran, A., and Spalanzani, A. (2011). Sustainability of manufacturing and services: Investigation for research and applications. International Journal Production Economics. Hermann, B. G., Kroeze, C., and Jawjit, W. (2007). Assessing environmental performance by combining life cycle assessment, multi-criteria analysis and environmental performance indicators. Journal Cleaner Production, 15, 17871796. Hutchins, M. J., and Sutherland, J. W. (2008). An exploration of measures of social sustainability and their application to supply chain decisions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 1688-1698. Jafartayari, S. (2010). Awareness of Sustainable Manufacturing Practices in Malaysia Manufacturers. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Jayal, A. D., Badurdeen, F., Dillon Jr., O. W., and Jawahir, I. S. (2010). Sustainable manufacturing: Modeling and optimization challenges at the product, process and system levels. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 2, 144-152. Jones, D. C., and Kato, T. (2005). The Effects of Employee Involvement on Firm Performance: Evidence from an Econometric Case Study. William Davidson Institute Working Paper No. 612. Kaebernick, H., Kara, S., and Sun, M. (2003). Sustainable product development and manufacturing by considering environmental requirements. Robot Compute Integration Manufacturing, 19, 461-468. Kumar, V., and Sutherland, J. W. (2009). Development and assessment of strategies to ensure economic sustainability of the U.S. automotive recovery infrastructure. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 53, 470 477. Labuschagne, C., Brent, A. C., and Erck, R. P. G. V. (2005). Assessing the sustainability performances of industries. Journal of Cleaner Production, 13, 372-385. Malaysia Automotive Economy Trend and Outlook (2011). Malaysia Automotive Institute. [Online] Available: http://www.mai.org.my/upload4download/MALAYSIA%20AUTOMOTIVE%20ECONOMY/Economic%20Out look%20for%20Automotive%20Industry%201%2003%202011%20-%20Final.pdf Malaysia Investment Performance (2011). Malaysian Investment Development Authority. [Online] Available: http://www.mida.gov.my/env3/uploads/PerformanceReport/2011/Report.pdf McWilliams, A., and Siegel, D. (2001). Corporate social responsibility: A theory of the firm perspective. Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 117-127. Millar, H. H., and Russell, S. N. (2011). The adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices in the Caribbean. Business Strategy & Environment 20, 512-526. Moldan, B., Janouskova, S., and Hak, T. (2012). How to understand and measure environmental sustainability: Indicators and targets. Ecological Indicators, 17, 4-13. Murphy K. J. (2001). Performance standard in incentive contract. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 245278. Nagel, M. H., and Tomiyama, T. (2004). Intelligent sustainable manufacturing systems, management of the linkage between sustainability and intelligence, an overview. In: IEEE international conference on systems, man and cybernetics, the Netherlands, 4183-4188. OECD (2009). Sustainable Manufacturing and Eco-Innovation: Framework, Practices and Measurement. Synthesis Report. [Online] Available: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/58/43423689.pdf Pay, R. (2008). Everybodys jumping on the lean bandwagon, but many are being taken for a ride. Industry Week; March 05, 2008. Porter, M., and Kramer, M. (2006). Strategy and society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 78-92.

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Prahalad, C. K., and Hammond, A. (2002). Serving the worlds poor, profitably. Harvard Business Review, 4857. Rosen, M. A., and Kishawy, H. A. (2012). Sustainable Manufacturing and Design: Concepts, Practices and Needs. Sustainability, Vol. 4, 154-174. Rusinko, C. A. (2007). Green manufacturing: An evaluation of environmentally sustainable manufacturing practices and their impact on competitive outcomes. IEEE Trans Eng. Management, 54 (3), 445-454. Sadiq, R., and Khan, F. I. (2006). An integrated approach for risk-based life cycle assessment and multi-criteria decision-making: selection, design and evaluation of cleaner and greener processes. Business Process Management Journal, 12(6), 770-792. Savitz, A., and Weber, K. (2006). The triple bottom line. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Schlichting, C. (2009). Sustaining Lean Improvement. Master thesis: Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Schoenherr, T. (2011). The role of environmental management in sustainable business development: A multicountry investigation. International Journal Production Economics. Seidel, R., Shahbazpour, M., and Seidel, M. (2007). Establishing Sustainable Manufacturing Practices in SMEs. Siegel, D. S. (2009). Green management matters only if it yields more green. An economic/strategic perspective. Academy of Management Perspectives, 23 (3), 5-16. Singh, R. K., Murty, H. R., Gupta, S. K., and Dikshit, A. K. (2009). An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies. Ecological Indicator, 9, 189-212. Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia (2010). Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC). [Online] Available: http://www.mpc.gov.my/mpc/images/file/Sustainable%20Development%20Initiatives%20In%20Malaysia.pdf Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability (2008). Manufacturing Skills Australia. [Online] Available: http://www.mskills.com.au/DownloadManager/Downloads/Sustainable%20manufacturing%20report.pdf Teece, D. J. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and micro foundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28 (11), 13191350. The UN Global Compact (2004). Embedding Human Right in Business Practice. Veleva, V., and Ellenbecker, M. (2001). Indicators od sustainable production: framework and methodology. Journal of Cleaner Production, 9, 519-549. Vinodh, S., and Joy, D. (2012). Structural equation modeling of sustainable-manufacturing practices. Clean Technology Environment Policy, 14, 79-84. Yuan, C., Zhai, Q., and Domfeld, D. (2012). A three dimensional system approach for environmentally sustainable manufacturing. CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology, 61, 3942.

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Table 1.0: Malaysian Manufacturing Industry Need Company Malaysian Manufacturing Industry Need 1. To engage society to carry out the green environment; Panasonic 2. To produce environmental friendly products; and 3. To educate and train employees to ensure that the Panasonic plant is environmental friendly. 1. Increase revenues from ecomagination products; 2. Double investment in R&D; General Electric 3. Reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions; 4. Improve the energy efficiency of GEs operations; 5. Reduce water use and improve water reuse; and 6. Keep the public informed. 1. Green technology; Malaysia Green Technology Corporation 2. To minimizes growth of resources consumption; 3. To minimizes degradation to the environment; 4. Promotes healthy; and 5. Improved environment. 1. Increased environmental awareness; 2. Better systems of work; Toyota 3. Better environmental performance; 4. Requires foundation of enforceable standards; 5. Substantial cost savings; and 6. Better public information and transparency. Source: Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia (2010) Table 2.0: Benefit of SMP Implementation Category Social Benefit of SMP implementation Improves personal health Enhance operational safety International standards and protocols Increased compliance requirements Community expectations will drive consumer choices to more sustainable products and services Competitive advantage and legitimating with less impact from social responsibility motivation Gain the company image Authors Jayal et al., 2010; Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia, 2010. Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Basu and Palazzos, 2008; Fairfield et al., 2011; Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Savitz and Weber, 2006; Seidel et al., 2007; Fairfield et al., 2011. Savitz and Weber, 2006; Blackburn, 2007; Fairfield et al., 2011; Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia, 2010. Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008.

- Spurring innovation and growth

Economic

- Cost associated with compliance will increase while companies will come under greater scrutiny form financial analysts

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- Increase number of sales - Reduce cost

Seidel et al., 2007. Jayal et al., 2010; Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Seidel et al., 2007. Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Rosen and Kishawy, 2012; Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008. Seidel et al. 2007; Nagel and Tomiyama, 2004; Jayal et al., 2010; Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia, 2010. Bovea and Wang, 2007; OECD, 2009. Nagel and Tomiyama, 2004; Sustainable Manufacturing: Manufacturing for Sustainability, 2008; Jayal et al., 2010; Rosen and Kishawy, 2012; Sustainable Development Initiatives in Malaysia, 2010. Savitz and Weber, 2006; Blackburn, 2007; Fairfield et al., 2011. Sadiq and Khan, 2006.

- Competition in the market-place will drive new inventions, innovation and technologies - Increase product desirability - Employee to more responsible and respected employers - Maintaining/increased profitability and productivity - Significant reductions in energy usage - Savings in waste disposal are achievable - Improving energy efficiency - Sustainable plants Environmental - Improve their performance environmental

- Avoiding regulatory entanglements - Ensuring clean and green atmosphere Table 3.0: SMP Constructs and Their Measurement Items SMP Constructs Literature/Authors

Review of The Authors More than half of the firm surveyed (55%) are using waterbased paint and 50% are using biodegradable materials. The results shown seem to indicate that Caribbean manufacturers have adopted a number of practices related to their input materials that promote sustainable manufacturing. 83% of the firms have implemented processes to minimize waste and 78% have sought to minimize the negative impact of their production processes on the work environment. It is interesting to note that energy efficiency was not a top priority for Caribbean manufacturers in the design and operation of their manufacturing processes. Respondents perceived competitive disadvantage as a deterrent to sustainability management or that their companys inclination to move toward sustainability was muted by a lack of pressure from stakeholders. Average items are under each factor to produce three five-point scale scores: Practices 1 Integration/Alignment (=0.94), Practices 2 Eco-efficiency (=0.88), and Practices 3 Employee-centered/Ethics ( =0.79). 32% of the respondents claim to source materials/products from environmentally friendly suppliers, while only 22%

Millar and Russell (2011)

Manufacturing Processes

Fairfield et al. (2011)

Supply Chain Management

Millar and Russell (2011)

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encourage suppliers to use recycled materials. 18% of the respondents have forged partnerships with suppliers to promote sustainable manufacturing. 97% claim to promote the health, wellbeing and safety of workers. 84% are committed to diversity in hiring and promoting employees and 80% donate to community programmers. Less than half of the firms (32%) give to international disaster relief efforts, while more than half (60%) use social responsibility as a strategy for creating brand loyalty. Average items are under each factor to produce four five point scales scores: Drivers 1 Environmental/Operational Issues (=0.93), Drivers 2 External stakeholder/Marketplace issues (=0.90), Drivers 3 Workplace issues (=0.75), and Drivers 4 Reputation/ Innovation/Compliance issues ( =0.68) Lean/Quality Initiatives 1. 2. Schoenherr (2011) 3. Environmental Sustainability Hermann et al. (2007) 4. 1. Provide further motivation for firms to implement environmental initiatives; Increase the customers perception of the plants product in the marketplace; Increasing the implied or perceived quality performance; and Increase a plants competitive advantage. Complete in that it includes parts of the production chain that are outside the boundaries of the industrial system itself; Making the results easy to interpret for policy purposes; and Uses readily available information. Decrease the price paid to the last user when purchasing an EOUP; Increase the selling price of the hulk; and The overhead cost will be greatly increased because of increased levels of dismantling. Corporate actions can be used to effect positive social change; Establish a comprehensive social footprint for a company; Form a single social sustainability metric for a company; and Form a single measure of performance for a supply chain. Involve a long-term shareholder value approach; A long-term view of profit maximization; In the case of manager-led companies, this will make necessary a change in incentive structure; and A company's goal to survive and prosper, it can do nothing better than to take a long term view and understand that if it treats society well, society will return the favor.

Social Responsibility

Millar and Russell (2011)

Environment Management

Fairfield et al. (2011)

Table 4.0. Dimensions of Sustainable Performance Variable Dimension Literature/Authors

2. 3. 1.

Economic Sustainability

Kumar and Sutherland (2009)

2. 3. 1.

Hutchins and Sutherland (2008) CSR Sustainability Flack and Heblich (2007)

2. 3. 4. 1. 2. 3. 4.

*Note: SMP = Sustainable Manufacturing Practices, SP = Sustainable Performance, MP = Manufacturing Processes, SCM = Supply Chain Management, SR = Social Responsibility, EM = Environment Management. Figure 1. Model for SME Framework

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